


don't say anything, stop arguing, please don't go

by sharkplant



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Pre-Series, When Sam left for Stanford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 18:26:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkplant/pseuds/sharkplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean didn’t want to hear Dad and Sam arguing again. He wanted some food, a soft mattress and a shower and he would take it anyway it would come, hot, cold, whatever. He just didn’t want Dad and Sam arguing. Just this once.</p><p>(alternative title - <i>"the night when Sam left for Stanford"</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't say anything, stop arguing, please don't go

**Author's Note:**

> There was a post on tumblr ([this post actually](http://sangetsel.tumblr.com/post/45659937916/dimpleforyourthoughts-here-sam-winchester-is) ) and I needed to make myself cry to feel better so this was born of that.
> 
> Un-beta'd as always. Any mistakes are my own (probably my fingers slipping through the tears on my keyboard)

Dean could feel it. He could feel Sam about to mention it. He knew that Sam was going to say something and the air was going to not just crackle like it was now, but combust into white hot scalding flames, brighter and more intense than the still burning remains of the vamp nest they had just dealt with.

Dean didn’t want to hear Dad and Sam arguing again. He wanted some food, a soft mattress and a shower and he would take it anyway it would come, hot, cold, whatever.

He just didn’t want Dad and Sam arguing.

Just this once.

It didn’t matter how hard he silently begged in the direction of the back seat for Sam not to say anything, he knew it wouldn’t work.

But he could hope.

‘Dad?’

Dean ground his teeth, catching himself mumbling ‘don’t’.

‘Yeah, Sammy?’ Dad turned his head enough to make it clear that he was listening but his eyes were still on the stretch of road to their makeshift home-of-the-week, an abandoned house on the outskirt of Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

‘I know you don’t like it, but,’ Sam swallowed with a dry click and Dean was trying to scramble back, back to what he didn't know, his nails digging into his thigh, wanting to shove them down Sam's throat, stop the words coming out. ‘But I applied to Stanford a few months back and I got in and I-‘

He didn’t get to finish that sentence because the impala that they had basically grown up in, slept in when times got rough, was their playground and home, its tires screeched for possibly the first time in Dean's waking memory.

‘No.’

Dean hunched his shoulders, stared out his window and didn’t dare breathe. In his experience, he was only afraid of two things, loosing Sam (extra points if it was his fault) and his father.

The impala’s engine was still rumbling and dad waited a few very strained moments before putting the car back into gear.

When they parked outside the house, got out and grabbed duffles, no one spoke, no one made eye contact and Dean was very worried.

He went straight into the kitchen, a reasonably clean rag in his hands which he wet under the tap and wiped the grime from his face and hands, rinsing it and passing it to Sam, coming up behind him with a glass.

They said nothing but Sam did nod by way of thanks and Dean responded with a tight smile.

John dumped his bag on the table, the weapons inside clattering against the wood and each other. He propped himself up, straight armed, on the back of the chair, head bowed between his shoulders.

Dad looked up. ‘Sam, why are you so insistent on going to college?’

Sam cleared his throat and shrugged, trying for nonchalant, but Dean could read his little brother like a book. He knew otherwise.

‘I want to do something with my life,’ Sam said.

John raised an eyebrow. ‘You think we aren’t doing something? You think we aren’t living?’

Sam scoffed. ‘We’re surviving, dad. We’re not living. And just barely, anyway.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means that I’ve seen my own father and brother almost mortally wounded more times than someone my age should. _I’ve_ been mortally wounded more times than someone my age should. It means I know how to treat those mortal wounds with sub standard tools like self-made needles and dental floss. It means we live in a car and crappy motels and that this is isn’t living!’ The words came out hot and fast ad stumbled and arranged like only a 17 year old knows how.

‘We’re alive. And we aren’t doing this for us, we’re doing this for other people. We are saving lives, Sam. They mean a lot more to the world than we do.’

Sam took a deep breath. ‘Then I want to be one of those people.’

Dad shoved at the chair and waved an arm. ‘What did you say? Why the hell would you wanna be like them?’

‘Because they’re normal,’ Sam sneered. ‘They don’t have to take the crap we face. Come on, dad, we just took out a nest of _vampires_. The worst thing they all dealt with today was blocked drain or a low score on a test. People my age shouldn’t know how to paint a perfectly drawn devil’s trap.’

It started raining, it was coming in from holes in the roof and the first floor, claps of thunder rolling off the clouds.

‘They’re ignorant and they refuse to accept what they see. We have a responsibility to take care of it. Otherwise no one else will and then the world would be a much worse off place.’

‘I don’t care. We’re doing a job that no one has asked us to do without any pay off, or recognition other than a bunch of other guys who have been clusterfucked into this secret life and it sucks and I want out. I want to go to college,’ Sam argued.

‘And I wanted a better life for you two,’ John retorted. ‘We don’t always get what we want.’

Sam narrowed his eyes at his father. ‘Then how about you stop making excuses and let me shape my own life. I’ve lived like a hunter for seventeen years. I’m done.’ He started to make a move toward the lounge/mattress room. It wouldn’t be fair to call it a bedroom.

Dean moved out of the way as Sam neared.

‘What are you doing?’ John growled, following his son.

‘I’m packing,’ Sam nearly yelled. ‘I’m packing so I can go to college and live a normal life and be normal because that’s all I want.’ Sam was putting some stray clothes and a few books in the bag with the rest of his (very few) things.

‘You walk out that door,’ Dad rumbled, like the first warnings of a storm, ‘that door will be shut, you hear me? If you leave, don’t ever try to find me, or your brother, because you would have made your choice and you won’t be coming back.’

Sam pulled out a jacket from the bag, put it on along with the bag. His eyes were glazed, refusing to blink, refusing to show any weakness. ‘Fine.' Sam's voice cracked twice on the word. 

Dean felt sick. He wanted to reach for the gun he always had jammed down the back of his jeans but he didn’t know what to do with it once it was in his hand. He left it there.

Sam stepped up to their father, he had had a growth spurt in the past month, Dean noticed, Sam towering over John by an inch or two but his face was set and that truly was scary.

What had Dean’s heart jumping around in his ribs was that everything he feared was coming together.

John stepped to the side and Sam walked past Dean without so much as a glance.

He walked out into the rain and it took Dean his father walking back into the kitchen some minutes later for him to stir.

Dean grabbed for the keys off the table, ignoring his father’s protests and clambering into the impala and punching her into life.

He found Sam a street away, already drenched to the bone.

The two Winchester’s stared at each other. The moment was cold and Dean felt empty even thought Sammy was still there in front of him but he had left the moment he’d walked out the door.

‘You wanna ride to the station?’ Dean yelled over the clatter of rain and thunder.

It took him a second, but Sam nodded.

He got in, flooding the shotgun seat with water, and Dean drove off.

Dean wanted to ask a lot of questions but he knew it wasn’t a good idea to ask them.

It would probably never be a good idea to ask them.

Sam got out at the bus stop, stopping for a second to say goodbye with a wave and tight smile.

Dean kept his face on until he couldn’t see Sammy and then it fell.  
It didn’t even fall into a frown.

His brother was off to lead a normal life and he was going back to his father and their lives as unsung heroes.

Dean knew, as he drove back to their makeshift home for his last night in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, aged 21, that while all of them were where they wanted to be. Didn't mean they were meant to be there.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated.
> 
> x


End file.
